Torren unfastened his coat, revealing the LeMat revolver, its twin barrels gleaming — one for bullets, the other for a shotgun round resting silently beneath.
"You ready to come out of retirement, soldier?"
Torren cocked the hammer.
"Just for today."
BANG!
The bullet shattered the window just as the train lurched forward.
Torren didn't flinch. He stood up like a tide rising—heavy, deliberate.
Across the narrow corridor, two men burst in, one swinging a telescopic baton, the other drawing a serrated blade.
Chuck ducked low, sweeping his leg under the nearest attacker's ankles.
The man stumbled—just as Torren's boot crashed into his ribcage. A sickening crunch. He folded like paper.
The second man lunged with the knife.
Torren sidestepped, turning his torso just enough—the blade whistled past his coat, grazing fabric.
Torren seized the attacker's wrist, twisted.
CRACK!
The elbow bent the wrong way. The knife clattered to the floor.
But another figure was already on him—short, stocky, fast. A hook punch aimed for Torren's temple.
THWACK!
Torren absorbed it with his forearm, stepped in, and delivered a brutal knee to the solar plexus.
The man gasped—air gone. Torren grabbed his collar and rammed his skull into the wall.
Behind them, Chuck grappled with a fourth assailant—taller, leaner, trained. A wiry man with military posture.
He feinted with a jab—then spun, elbowing Chuck in the jaw. Chuck staggered back, lip bleeding.
But he smiled.
"Cymrian Commando. Figured."
Chuck blocked the next strike with his forearm, drove his fist into the man's throat—
then again—
and again—
until the commando dropped to his knees, choking on his own breath.
Meanwhile—Torren turned. The first man, the one he'd kicked—was back up. A pistol now in his hand.
Too close. No time to draw.
Torren grabbed a silver tray from the table and hurled it—
CLANG!
It smashed into the gunman's face. Blood sprayed.
Torren closed the distance in two strides and punched him so hard he fell backwards through the compartment door.
Silence. Only the hiss of steam, the hum of rails beneath them.
Chuck straightened his jacket, breathing heavy.
Torren looked around at the fallen bodies, jaw tight.
"You sure this is just a sting operation?"
Chuck wiped his bloodied mouth, nodding.
"Welcome to Frestia Waters, Etskald."
Torren glanced at his surroundings,
"Chuck,"
He patted Chuck's shoulder,
"Where is the lady?"
HISSSS!
As soon as the words left his mouth, smoke enveloped the compartment.
"Etskald!"
Chuck shrieked, reaching for the window.
WHAM!
His palm crashed against an invisible barrier that covered the windows and the compartment doors.
"She's a sorceress!"
Torren barked.
The smoke writhed—not like fire or steam—but as if it breathed. It slithered across metal and leather, curling into corners like living shadow. The scent of scorched copper filled the air.
Then came the sound.
Not a voice. Not a scream.
But gears. Turning. Grinding. Screeching. Like factory wheels locked in agony.
Out of the swirling fog stepped a woman draped in layered silk the colour of coal dust. Her sleeves fell like trailing ink, and chains ran across her shoulders like jewellery scavenged from industrial wreckage.
One eye gleamed gold—the other, a whirling lens ticking in and out of focus.
The Sorceress of Iron.
Her fingers flicked—elegant, ritualistic.
The floor beneath Torren vibrated. Metal screamed. Wood split.
From the seams in the flooring, the vents in the walls, and the brasswork around the lamps, they came.
The Iron Imps.
Small, hunched figures—no taller than a child but forged like grotesque toys from hell. Their skin was rusted plate and pipe, their limbs jointed like automatons.
Claws like wrenches. Jaws split open like vises. Eyes flickered with furnace-light.
One laughed. A screech like a failing lathe.
Then came another. Then another.
Eighteen in total. Surrounding Torren and Chuck in a tightening circle.
One Imp skittered across the ceiling, tearing its claws through the brass lamp. Another dropped onto a fallen body and drove its claws into the man's neck with surgical brutality.
"Don't break the barrier," the Sorceress cooed, voice like molten syrup sliding through metal.
"Not until I've finished… my test."
Torren clenched his jaw.
"Test?"
"Strength. Resolve. Containment. They say Royal Marines are impossible to control."
She stepped aside, like a conductor offering the stage.
"Let's find out."
CHNK!
The lead Imp extended its claws with a metallic snap.
Then the charge began.
Smoke veiled the floor like creeping fog. The screech of halted wheels faded into the groaning of old metal under pressure.
CLACK—CLACK—CLACK.
Eighteen figures emerged through the smoke, their iron feet slamming against the floor like hammers.
They were knee-high horrors — all jagged joints, brass lungs pumping in sync, and eyes glowing like coal-fed furnaces. Iron Imps.
HISSS—TINK!
A gear clicked open on one imp's back, igniting the hiss of steam-driven teeth gnashing.
Torren slid his LeMat free from its holster beneath his coat.
Nine chambers. One shotgun barrel. His fingers, unshaken. His eyes — ice.
CHUCK followed suit, cocking his six-shot Galvani revolver with a side-flick of his wrist.
"Eighteen, huh?"
"Too many," Torren muttered, raising his revolver.
BANG!
The first shot shattered an imp mid-leap, gears and pistons exploding against the ceiling like shrapnel.
CLANG!
Another charged—
BANG!
Chuck dropped it clean with a bullet through the gut-pipe.
But more kept coming.
SCREECH!
Two leapt onto Chuck's back. One drove rusted claws toward his neck.
"Duck!" Torren barked.
BANG—CLACK!
The revolver's buckshot barrel roared. The imps disintegrated in midair. Chuck dropped to the ground, coughing in soot.
"Thanks," Chuck spat.
CRASH!
An imp launched through the overhead luggage net, claws flaring. It tackled Torren hard, driving him against the window.
SCREEEEE!
The sound of its laughter was like nails dragged across a boiler tank.
Torren's elbow came down like a piston — once, twice — denting the imp's skull.
He jammed the revolver under its jaw.
BANG!
Molten brass sprayed the glass.
But they were surrounded.
"Out of ammo?"
Chuck asked, breathless, reloading behind an upturned seat.
"Four left,"
Torren growled, then—
PING!
His revolver clicked empty.
Too slow.
An imp rammed into his ribs, knocking him into the compartment wall. His LeMat slid under a bench. Another imp jumped on his back, jabbing iron talons into his shoulder.
"Torren!"
Chuck fired—but missed. The bullet pinged off the ceiling.
Torren's hand fumbled along the wall—
There. The red box.
He punched through the glass and tore out the emergency fire axe.
WHAM!
The haft crushed the imp's jaw.
SLICE!
The head of the axe split another in half mid-air, cutting through its gear-sprocket spine.
Chuck rolled behind the food trolley, dragging his revolver and slamming home a fresh cylinder.
"Chuck, take the far end!"
"Copy!"
BANG! BANG!
Chuck covered the hallway, knees low, shooting down imps that funneled through the narrow corridor.
Torren moved like a storm.
CHOP. WHIRL. CHOP.
He caught an imp by the throat, slammed it into the ground, and stomped its chest in—twice.
But then came her voice—
A sultry whisper through the smoke:
"You boys dance well for soldiers."
From above the luggage racks, the sorceress descended like a shadow, eyes glowing a sickly green. Her fingertips trailed glowing glyphs midair.
CLANG!
The remaining imps froze. Steam hissed. Their arms shifted—
Crossbows of copper and piston-locked bolts emerged from their chests.
"Torren!" Chuck shouted.
Torren dove—
THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!
Bolts embedded where he'd just stood.
Chuck flipped a table on its side.
"Suggestions?" he asked.
Torren flipped the axe in his hand, blood and oil streaked across his cheek.
"We take her down."
"How?"
Torren pointed to the leaking boiler line behind her.
"Gunshot. Steam pressure. Distraction."
Chuck nodded.
"One shot?"
Torren smirked. "One's enough."
Torren's fingers flexed around the axe haft, eyes locked onto the sorceress who floated just above the floor. Her bare feet didn't make a sound. The smog curled protectively around her ankles.
"Last chance," Torren muttered.
She tilted her head, long black hair sliding across her face like ink.
"I was never here."
CRACK!
Torren lunged—
CHUCK FIRED at the leaking boiler valve behind her—
SSSHHHHHHH!
A blinding jet of scalding steam exploded into the compartment, veiling the world in white.
"MOVE!" Chuck yelled.
They charged together, side by side—
Torren swung wide, the axe aimed to cleave through whatever it met.
But—
WHOOSH!
She vanished—no sound, no portal—just air collapsing in her absence.
The sorceress was gone.
Silence returned like a punch to the gut. The compartment was a war zone — brass limbs, blood, shattered benches, smoking pipes.
CHUNK!
The train hissed to a halt at the next station.
CLATTER. CLINK.
The doors unlocked. A wave of startled conductors and civilians surged in. Then froze.
A mother screamed. A child began to cry. Someone vomited into a scarf.
All eyes fell on Torren and Chuck—
Bloodstained. Soot-covered. Surrounded by the mutilated remains of mechanical demons.
"Hands up!"
One conductor barked, clearly panicked.
"Back!"
Torren lifted one palm, the other still gripping the axe.
Chuck stepped forward, coat parted, chest rising.
He produced a metal badge, gleaming under the flickering ceiling lamp —
Royal Marine Corps, Joint Counterintelligence Division.
"Lieutenant Charles Whitmoor. Badge I-D: Three-Seven-Kilo. We neutralized a terror attack and a demonic incursion. Four terrorists, eighteen Iron Imps and one Class-Three spellcaster."
"Metropolitan Police will meet you outside,"
another conductor said, hand trembling on his whistle.
Chuck nodded, handing him the badge for closer inspection.
"Call them now. We'll give our statement at the station."
Torren wiped sweat from his brow. He glanced at the mess around him, then out the door at the gathering uniformed officers—Metropolitan Police already approaching on the platform with hands on batons.
He whispered to Chuck without looking at him,
"Think they'll believe us?"
Chuck shrugged.
"They will have too."
Torren chuckled grimly.
"Guess it's show and tell, then."
And as they stepped off the train, flanked by shocked passengers and flaring gaslights, Torren slid the LeMat back under his coat.
A FEW MOMENTS LATER-
The sky was the colour of cold steel, a pale sun pushing faint gold through scattered soot-clouds. The gas lamps lining the platform flickered uncertainly in the breeze.
Torren stepped out, his heavy boots crunching against gravel.
The station clock ticked, matching the precise click of the silver pocket watch he withdrew from his coat.
'7:30'
He stared at the ticking hands.
'Eight minutes.'
That was all.
He flipped the watch shut with a snap.
Behind him, the door creaked again—Chuck emerged, his coat slung across one shoulder, sleeves rolled, knuckles still dark from imp-oil and soot.
He approached quietly, his voice low and calm.
"Just go to your mother."
No order. No pleading. Just truth.
Torren turned slightly, his silhouette sharp in the slanted morning light. He stared at the door of the office, where the police still scribbled reports and whispered about demons they didn't believe in.
"So... I can go?"
His voice cracked just enough for the wind to notice.
Chuck nodded, eyes fixed forward as he strode back toward the doorway.
"We'll hold the line," he muttered.
"You've earned your time."
Torren stood still for a long breath, shoulders hunched—not with fatigue, but with the heaviness of permission. The kind a soldier rarely receives. The kind a son almost never does.
He checked the pocket watch again. But this time, his fingers traced the inside lid.
Tucked behind the ticking face was a small photograph, sun-faded and gently creased.
A woman with cascading black hair, laughing in the act of turning—her eyes that always searched for him. Her smile something carved into the bones of memory.
Torren whispered:
"Please wait for me..."
He shut the watch and tucked it back inside his coat.
"Mother."
Then, without another word, he walked down the platform, boots echoing against stone, coat whipping behind him like a shadow unchained.
And in the distance, the whistle of the next train screamed like a war horn through morning fog.